ill remain
 
RN>From: Roy Nettlebeck <[log in to unmask]>
  >Date:         Wed, 21 Feb 1996 12:58:45 -0800
  >Subject:      Fumidil B
 
RN>
  >  I would like to know if anyone knows how long fumidil-B will remain
  >active after its expiration date. The seal had not been broken.I can get
  >some of the big bottles at a good price. My bees are important to me and
  >would not want to take  a 50% chance. I know that test have shown that
  >you don't want to reduce the ppm of fumagillin.
  >Thanks Roy
 
Hi Roy,
 
If you need it..get it. But the sad truth there is no way to check it
and in fact there is no quality control once it leaves the production
line, and there is the real rub. The only chance for checking the
active ingredients is during the manufacture, so we are at the mercy
of the good will and your faith in the company that makes it. When it
was manufactured in the US it was possible to call and ask these type of
questions of the actual hands on people who made it while they were
making it. I remember many such calls to the lab in Chicago, as I was
using many lot's of it and it was not cheep so I wanted to know from who
and what I was buying.
 
I have no idea who or what country it is made in today, or if any type
of quality control exists. I suspect that it is exempt from any kind of
US controls, but don't know the facts. It could be "fu fu" dust and we
would have no way to know, and no way to test it. Therefore unless you
know you are having a problem it is one of those chemicals that should
only be used when you have the extra cash to invest. It is not hard to
learn to check for and count nosema spores and only requires a kid's
microscope to do field tests.
 
I have used enough jars of this stuff to form a line of bottles placed
on the top header of the blocks that make the walls of my warehouse that
extends two hundred feet, a very impressive sight when viewed from the
prospective of the cost's to the beekeepers involved.
 
Fumagillin, if kept in the container which did have an inert gas seal,
protected from heat, protected from light, air, and stored in a cool
place, preferably a refrigerator, should last long past it's expiration
date.  This drug should be refrigerated prior to sale or use, I have
never visited a retailer that refrigerated it, sorry to say. No law's
exist to protect your interests in this product other then when a
company want's to manufacture it for sale and be protected from other
company's that might want to manufacture it, the rest is just not there.
 
When opened it should be used by dissolving in warm, not hot, not
cold water. Hot water will melt the binder and make it hard to mix in
sugar syrup. The products contains buffers that will foam when mixed
with warm water, after it is thoroughly dissolved, foaming will stop and
it can be mixed with the appropriate amount of sugar. Fumagillin is best
used to prevent problems, and should be used just prior or at the onset
of brood rearing, but can be used anytime there is no danger of honey
contamination. (Don't use during a honey flow, as it will become diluted
and not do much good, and will end up in the stored honey.)
 
The product should be free flowing from the jar, if not it has been
damaged by heat and may be worthless.
 
Does it work or does it pay to use it? I am not sure it pays to use
this product in field or production hives but it is a must for hives
used for queen rearing and nucs in the spring in this area of
California. It extends the life of bee's and in small colonies like
queen mating nucs and small hives that are closed up or can't get out
to fly and (to do what our CIA found out about what bee's did in Nam,
Yellow Rain).
 
We use to, and most still do in this area use 20 lbs of bee's in a
screened cage to rear queen cells on a fast easy cheep large scale.
Before using Fumagillin the bee's were good for one ten day run and then
were of no value. After ten day we put the cells in a temperature and
humidity controlled box. I have used these same bee's several time's
when fed Fumagillin, (don't recommend it), and now after the bee's have
been used once they can be added to hives, (in the past we just dumped
them in a bee yard, and most of them would die). Incidentally when these
20 lbs of bulk bee's are being ladled out into baby nuc's after dark
they are less aggressive if they have been held on syrup with Fumagillin
before use.
 
The greatest return on money spent for Fumagillin is in feeding queen
banks holding several hundred queens, the loss of queens is not a factor
but it sure can be when none is used. Fumagillin syrup in package bee
feed can extend the critical, time sometime's shortened by weather, in
getting the packages successfully installed or having large number's of
dead bee's in the bottom of the package prior to installation or
sometime's all of them dead. If I had a choice I would buy queens and
packages from someone that I knew used Fumagillin then from someone I
did not know if he fed it. And used it year around when rearing queens.
 
                        ttul Andy-
 
 
 
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